Alternet: "My Night Trying to Save Liberty Plaza: Firsthand Account of NYPD's Eviction of OWS"

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http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/153087/my_night_trying_to_save_liberty_plaza%3A_firsthand_account_of_nypd%27s_eviction_of_ows

AlterNet / By Kristen Gwynne

My Night Trying to Save Liberty Plaza: Firsthand Account of NYPD's Eviction of OWS

When your supporters are facing an unknown fate in the park that has become the base for a global movement, separation is tough.

November 15, 2011 |

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People were pissed. They were blindsided - separated from their friends, their homes, their families. Occupy Wall Street runs on camaraderie, on solidarity. And when your supporters are facing an unknown fate in the park that has become the base for a global movement, separation is tough.

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I had not been there long at all, maybe 10 minutes, when all of a sudden I was slammed up against a building on Cortlandt St., at the corner of Broadway. I looked up, and it was the cops. They were pushing the guys in front of me, crushing several of us against a building as they shouted at us to move back. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a huge gust of pepper-spray jet past my head. Luckily, I didn't get hit, at least hard. My mouth tasted like acetone as my eyes and face started to burn, just enough to make me livid. I was spitting that shit out for hours.

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Several times throughout the march, police sprinted down the street to clear people out of the vacant roads (it was 3am). One cop walked slowly behind, joking with demonstrators that he wasn't like the other cops. Another cop pushed me up onto the sidewalk, but when I told him I was trying to get up there but had nowhere to go, he immediately apologized, and then apologized again, and seemed to feel bad. Another cop yelled angrily to another cop, "Let them cross the street!!" and started to pull people out of an intersection.

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Exhausted, I left for home at around 10:30am and hopped into a cab. The driver asked, "Who are they?"

Occupy Wall Street," I said proudly, "They were evicted from the park. The police kicked everyone out."

"Were you over there?" he asked.

"Yep," I said. And he turned off the meter. Solidarity.

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